Report: Around The Show, PPE 2011

Report: Around the Show - PPE 2011

PPE is smaller than shows like Photokina and PMA, but even though it takes place in a single hall, there's a lot to see

Alongside stands from manjor manufacturers like Canon and Nikon, there are plenty of smaller companies represented, showing off everything from camera cases to hard drives.

As the 2011 PPE show draws to a close, we've got our work cut out, editing and publishing a series of video features (watch this space). We spent a lot of time speaking to the major camera manufacturers this year, but there was plenty more to see, including printers, lots of camera bags and supports, flash equipment and digital storage options. Here's a selection of some of the standout products that we saw at the show.

This is the new Epson Stylus Photo R3000, Epson's newest 13-inch printer.

Epson's booth doubled as a gallery, showing portfolio-quality images on its entire range of inkjet paper.

Speaking of getting creative, here's Lensbaby with a selection of its most recent products

And here's the 'composer focus front' mounted on an Olympus E-PL1.

Lexar showed us its new USB 3.0 compact flash card reader, which promises to halve the speed of data transfer (assuming your computer has a USB 3.0 port of course) and the Echo ZX 32GB backup thumb drive.

And this is the SanDisk Memory Vault, which promises to keep your data safe for 100 years...

The Hahnemuhle stand has some beautiful work on display, all printed on its best inkjet paper

And Ilford has a similar idea, covering its stand with impressive quality prints.

One of the best-known names in photography, Gitzo had a huge range of tripods on display

Including the 'safari' range. They're green.

Lowepro is one of the most well-known bag manufacturers, and as usual, the American company has a large stand

Plenty of interest from photographers at the show, eager to see for themselves just how much they could fit into Lowerpro's latest bags.

National Geographic was also in attendance, with its own range of bags...

...designed to appeal to the Indiana Jones in all of us.

Nearby was Israeli bag manufacturer Kata

Showcasing some of its impressive heavy-duty technology

As usual, there were plenty of Chinese third-party accessory makers at PPE as well, selling familiar-looking accessories for less than you'd expect.

Everything from battery grips to studio lighting.

Custom Brackets had a small stand, and showed us their new HDV 'Run and Gun'.

A taste of home (for some of the dpreview team) it's good to see British bag maker Billingham keeping the standards (and prices) high.

This is KEH.com - the world's largest retailer of second-hand gear. Nothing to buy, but plenty of information on this stand.

Lacie, one of the foremost digital storage manufacturers was at PPE, showing off its RAID drives, including the 4big Quadra, shown here.

Also on show were its smaller external hard drives.

Manfrotto had a large stand at this year's show, and were keen to show off a new 'hybrid' tripod head...

...which can be converted from a pan and tilt ('video') to a ball head ('photo') at the flick of a switch.

A glimpse of a possible future, this is the Schneider Optics iPro - a dedicated accessory for Apple's iPhone 4 and 4s which greatly expands the capabilities of its built-in camera with screw-in optics.

We asked what the aperture blades around the Apple logo were for and we were told 'for show'. The handle beneath the case combines a tripod mount with a carrying compartment for additional lenses.

Polaroid was at the show as well, with this glass display of past glories...

Pentax / Ricoh Photo Plus images here. Seems these two brands are not on the radar for DPR. http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachments/general-photography-industry/107594d1320089931-pdn-photoplus-expo-img-3415.jpghttp://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachments/general-photography-industry/107595d1320089994-pdn-photoplus-expo-img-3454.jpghttp://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachments/general-photography-industry/107596d1320090015-pdn-photoplus-expo-img-3530.jpg